It's 3:13 in the afternoon on March 11, 2022. A security camera on Victoria Street in downtown Kamloops, British Columbia captures a man walking along the sidewalk. He's wearing a green hooded jacket, a jade-coloured toque, and heavy hiking boots. Slung over one shoulder is a brown leather satchel. In his right hand, a black cloth shopping bag. He is not rushing. His pace is described later, by the judge who reviewed the footage, as a stroll. He is early for his appointment with his friend and lawyer and taking his time.

He looks down at the watch on his left wrist.

He walks out of the camera's frame.

That is the last image ever captured of Mohd Abdullah alive.

What happened next, in a fire-damaged law office on Victoria Street, was not a sudden argument that got out of hand. It was not a crime of passion. It was not an accident.

It was a plan. Written on a cue card. With tools bought from a Home Depot. And the with the help of two unsuspecting people.

I'm Ryan, and this is Canadian CrimeCast — Coast to Coast True Crime. 

This is one of the most meticulously documented murder cases in recent British Columbia history, and justice got every detail right.  This is the murder of Mohd Abdullah.

Let's go back to the beginning.

PART ONE: THE TWO MEN

Mohd Abdullah was, by the time this story begins, a man with a careful life built over decades.

He was a tenured professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops — a city nestled in the high desert country of British Columbias Interior. He had worked there for 21 years, in the Faculty of Science and Open Learning. He was described by his colleagues as frugal, meticulous, and hardworking. He kept records of everything. He annotated his calendars. He saved cheques, emails, correspondence. He had folders on his work computer labelled by the names of the people he dealt with. He was a man who kept score.

By 2016, Mohd had built up a healthy investment portfolio and substantial savings — the product of decades of careful living on a professor's salary. He had a daughter, Sarah, in the Philippines. He spoke to her with what she later described as heart-to-heart talks.

He also had a marriage that was ending.

Mohd  had been married since 2008 — over seven years by the time the divorce proceedings began. Mohd was determined to protect his savings. He did not want to divide what he had spent a lifetime building.

And so he hired a lawyer. A family lawyer right there in Kamloops. A man who, as Mohd would later describe him, was a trusted friend.

Rogelio Bagabuyo. Known to everyone as Butch.

Butch was 54 years old in 2016, a practicing family lawyer with an office on Victoria Street in downtown Kamloops. He was, by all outward appearances, a community practitioner — the kind of lawyer you'd find in a mid-sized city, someone who knew his clients by name, who met them at coffee shops near his office, who showed up at their homes. He was described by Justice Ker in her judgement as smooth-talking and folksy.  He called people "my friend."

He was also broke.

The forensic accounting evidence adduced at trial revealed that, over an 7 year period, Butch’s personal accounts carried a negative balance for nearly 6 years. Without the money he received from Mohd Abdullah, his accounts would have been in the red for the entire period. He was, in the Crown's characterization, a man living off his client's life savings.

PART TWO: THE SCHEME

The arrangement began in February 2016, when Mohd retained Butch to assist him in his divorce.

At some point — and it doesn't matter who first suggested it — the two men entered into an illegal scheme. Mohd would transfer his life savings to Butch, who would shelter the money from the family law proceedings. Hide it. Once the divorce was finalized, the money would be returned.

Mohd knew this was improper. He told his friend Angela, in 2018, that he had given his lawyer more than $200,000 to hide from the divorce. He told her: "Please don't say anything because I will go to jail, and so will Butch, my lawyer."

He knew. And he trusted Butch anyway.

Between February 2016 and June 2017, Mohd transferred approximately $765,000 to Bagabuyo. The money came in stages.

By April 2018, all of it was gone.

Butch had spent Abdullah's life savings — all of it — on home renovations, living expenses, and cash withdrawals. The forensic accountant's report, traced every dollar. 

Every cent that Mohd had saved over a career spanning decades — vanished. And Butch had absolutely no way to give it back.

PART THREE: THE LONG CON

Here is where Butch’s true character reveals itself. Because rather than coming clean — rather than confessing to his client and facing the consequences — he did what fraudsters do.

He stalled.

The original justification for the sheltering scheme disappeared in  September 2019 when Mohd’s ex-wife passed away.  Mohd expected his money back immediately. Instead, Butch told him there was a problem: his ex-wife’s estate and her children might still make legal claim. A further two-year "holding period" was necessary, Butch said.

To make this more convincing, Butch forged a letter. He fabricated the letterhead and the signature of a lawyer from a completely separate Kamloops law firm — MJB Lawyers. The forged letter claimed MJB had been retained to commence legal proceedings against Mohd on behalf of his ex-wife’s estate. Mohd signed a copy of the forged letter on February 5, 2020. The ruse worked. Mohd agreed to keep waiting.

By August 2021, the fictional two-year holding period was expiring. Mohd emailed Butch to get the ball rolling on the return of his money. He had already told his financial advisor, that he expected his money back around this time. He had also told his fiancée.

The first meeting to discuss the return happened September 3, 2021 — at a coffee shop near Butch’s office. And here, Butch performed what can only be described as astonishing audacity: he told Mohd that he needed another $17,000 to facilitate the return of the funds. Mohd paid it. The $17,000 was withdrawn in cash.  Butch used that money for personal expenses.

Through the fall of 2021, Mohd pressed harder. He emailed. He sent texts. He kept meticulous annotations in his monthly calendars — keeping track of meetings with Butch, payments made to him, promises given and not kept.

On November 30, 2021, Butch showed up at Mohd's home in person to deliver more bad news: another delay. An emergency trip to the Philippines, he said. A death in the family. Don't worry — you'll get your money, just not before Christmas.

Mohd secretly recorded this conversation and shared it with his fiancée, and his financial advisor. The recording was played at trial. His frustration, anxiety and anger, the judge noted, were palpable. Butch, by contrast, was smooth. Reassuring. He kept calling Mohd "my friend."

Mohd’s friend Murray Redman was so concerned about Mohd's emotional state during this period that he agreed at trial he had been worried about Mohd's mental health.

His friend Efran Zahrai, spoke to Mohd two or three times a week. Invariably, the conversation turned to the money. Mohd was consumed by it.

By January 2022, Mohd emailed his financial advisor with an update on his situation. He ended his message with this:

"Butch: Update: Still in the waiting game. Only God knows when. 6 years have passed with no gains in this part of my wealth. I had enough!"

PART FOUR: THE BREAKING POINT

By February 2022, the emails between Mohd and Butch had shifted in tone. Mohd was not asking anymore. He was demanding.

On February 22, Butch showed up at Mohd's office at the university, ostensibly to discuss using shell corporations as a vehicle for the return of the funds. He managed to extract yet another cheque from Mohd — this one for $7,500.  Mohd had saved a copy of the cashed cheque in his work computer folder.

Butch spent that $7,500 on his own personal expenses.

Over the weekend of February 24 and 25, 2022, Mohd sent a series of increasingly pointed emails to Butch. The subject lines tell the story: "FUNDS." "Expression of Feelings." "Action Vs Words — Out of Sync."

In the final email, Mohd wrote: "I am so stressed with all of this. Where are you going with this and what else is on your agenda for me? How long more do you want/wish to control me and my funds? Verbally you have given me false hope on several occasions. You over promise and under deliver. Butch please release me and my funds."

Justice Ker was direct in her assessment: upon receiving these two emails, Butch would have known, to put it colloquially, that "the jig was about to be up."

He needed to do something.

PART FIVE: THE DECISION — MARCH 1, 2022

On the morning of March 1, 2022, at 11:01 a.m., Butch replied to Mohd's emails. It was his first communication in response to the  pointed February messages.

The email Butch sent was unlike anything he had sent before. It was formal. Aggressive. It included accusatory language, suggestions that Mohd's emails contained libellous statements, veiled references to previous legal advice, and a reminder about the impropriety of surreptitious recordings — ironic, given that Butch himself had actually advised Mohd years earlier, in a 2016 email, to record his estranged wife.

Most importantly: the email set a meeting at Butch's law office for March 11, 2022 at 3:30 p.m. And it directed Mohd not to reply.

It was the first step in a plan to kill.

Seven and a half hours later — at 6:28 p.m. that same evening — Butch drove to the Home Depot on Hillside Drive in Kamloops. He purchased one item: a 45-gallon black plastic storage Tote. He paid cash. The purchase was captured on video surveillance and the receipt was later found during the search of his home.

This is The Tote that would soon hold Mohd Abdullah's body.

PART SIX: THE PLANNING — MARCH 2 TO 10

What followed over the next ten days was a systematic, methodical preparation for murder. Justice Ker walked through it in extraordinary detail.

March 7: Butch received an email from the Law Society of British Columbia requesting further documentation for a compliance audit of his accounts. The Law Society was closing in. His professional world was collapsing.

March 8: Butch visited his fire-damaged law office on Victoria Street — still in the process of restoration. He spent four minutes there, between 1:40 and 1:44 p.m., and took photographs of parts of the interior.

After returning home at 1:53 p.m., he went to his backyard shed and retrieved an unknown square item and two lengths of black rope or strapping material. He walked them out to the street — likely to his parked vehicle — and returned empty handed. At approximately 2:00 p.m., all three of his backyard security cameras stopped recording and did not resume until nearly midnight.

The Crown's theory — accepted by Justice Ker — is that Butch disabled those cameras and used this time to construct the garrote that would later be found tied around Mohd’s neck. A wood biologist, Professor Shawn Mansfield from the University of British Columbia, testified that the two wooden handles of the garrote had come from the same piece of wood found on the floor of Butch's storage shed — a piece of wood that was confirmed to have been in the shed before the murder. 

March 9: Mohd told his friend Efran Zahrai that he was meeting his lawyer on Friday March 11. He expected to get his money back. Efran never heard from Mohd again.

March 10: At approximately 10:51 a.m., all three backyard security cameras stopped recording again. They would not resume until the evening of March 16 — six full days later, spanning the day before the murder, the day of the murder, and the days that followed, until after Mohd's body had been removed from the property.

Later that afternoon, Butch made his first trip back to Home Depot. He purchased:

• A Lincoln Electric Inferno Propane Torch Kit
• An HDX Econopoly Drop Sheet — which was approximately 1500 square feet of plastic sheeting
• Three pairs of neon green work gloves
• Two packages of white plastic push pins
• A Bernzomatic Universal Torch Extension Hose

He returned to Home Depot a second time that same evening. At 7:09 p.m., dressed in black pants, a black North Face jacket, black gloves, a white COVID mask, a knitted toque, and a pair of distinctive blue running shoes with orange soles, Butch purchased a second 45-gallon black plastic storage Tote — identical to the one he had bought on March 1.

This was later referred to as the Decoy Tote. Identical to the murder Tote in every way. Its purpose, as Justice Ker would later conclude, was to serve as an alibi object — to provide an innocent explanation if anyone spotted Butch dragging a large storage bin down Victoria Street.

On March 12, Butch went to Costco and purchased a 20-pound tank filled with propane.

On March 13, he went to Princess Auto and spent over an hour in the store, ultimately purchasing:

• Three sets of black neoprene long gloves
• A hacksaw
• A three-pack of hacksaw blades
• A hatchet
• A 6x8-foot tarp
• Paracord
• A cargo carrier with a trailer hitch attachment
• Four LED keychains
• A multi-pack of blue and black nitrile gloves

He also selected — but did not purchase — a shovel, bolt cutters, and possibly ratchet straps.
 
 At some point, it isn’t known when, Butch wrote a “To Do” list on a recipe card with the following steps:
 
 - Bag everything after
 - Don’t Bring phone and Watch
 - Turn GPS Off
 - Throw garbage out
 - Close doors so not visible
 - Location services off

The plan was taking shape.

PART SEVEN: THE MORNING OF MARCH 11

Butch’s daughter was a competitive swimmer. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, she trained at the aquatic facility adjacent to the university, starting at 6:10 a.m. On the morning of Friday, March 11, 2022, her father drove her to practice.

On the way back, he made a detour.

Surveillance footage shows his Honda SUV in downtown Kamloops at 6:18 a.m. At 6:19, he disarmed the security system at his law office on Victoria Street. He was inside for less than 13 minutes. At 6:32, he rearmed the system. By 6:43, he was back near his home.

What did he do in those 13 minutes? He may have placed the Tote in the office. He may have made other preparations. Justice Ker found it impossible to say with certainty, but found it beyond doubt that the Tote was placed in the office either during this pre-dawn visit or during his visit on March 8.

After returning home, Butch sent his girlfriend, in Saskatchewan, a series of affectionate good morning text messages. He wrote that he wished he could drive out to see her.

At 9:04, his daughter texted asking if he'd be home for lunch. He wasn't sure — he might be at the office. Between 10:09 and 11:21 a.m., they exchanged texts about a frisbee she needed. He drove to her school to deliver it. He was back home by 11:35 a.m.

At 12:20 p.m., he texted his girlfriend about having a quick lunch.

Across town, on the university campus, Mohd Abdullah was sitting at his work computer. The night before, between 8:43 and 9:17 p.m., he had accessed several documents in his "Butch" folder. That morning, at 10:07 a.m., he had opened the document he'd prepared for the meeting: "Questions_Mtg_March_11_2022."

He had questions. He wanted his money.

At 11:27 a.m., Mohd sent a text message to his fiancée, in Indonesia, telling her he loved her. She was asleep and did not read it until hours later. By then, he was already dead.

At about 1:30 p.m., he called his friend Tanya, and told her he was about to go meet his lawyer. He was going to get his money back. She asked him to be in touch when it was done.

He never called her back.

PART EIGHT: 1:05 P.M. — BAGABUYO MOVES

Between 1:00 and 1:03 p.m., Butch rearmed his home security system and left — then immediately came back — then left again. The security system records capture this hesitation in the data. At 1:05 p.m., the Garmin dashcam in his Honda SUV activated and he drove downtown.

At 1:10 p.m., he entered the Parkade on Lansdowne Street and parked. At 1:13 p.m., surveillance footage captured him walking through the lobby of Sprott Shaw College toward an elevator. He was wearing a blue winter jacket, black pants, black shoes, black gloves, and a black COVID face mask. Over his right shoulder hung a large, full, black duffle bag. There may have been a second bag on his back — the camera angle made it difficult to say.

At 1:16 p.m., he disarmed the security system at his law office.

He would not rearm it until 5:47 p.m.

At 2:31 p.m., he texted his girlfriend that he was home — which was demonstrably false. His office alarm was still disarmed, and his car was still in the parkade. At 2:44 p.m., he texted again and admitted he was at the office and would be "for some time."

PART NINE: 3:07 P.M. — ABDULLAH ARRIVES

At 2:52 p.m., Mohd Abdullah boarded a BC Transit bus at the university heading downtown. Security footage on the bus shows him sitting quietly, his posture relaxed, showing no visible signs of agitation or anxiety. He was wearing his green jacket, his toque, his heavy hiking boots. His brown leather satchel was over his left shoulder. The black cloth shopping bag was in his right hand. Based on the timing, he was early.

He had his questions. He had his documents. He had spent the evening and that morning reviewing everything in his "Butch" folder. He was ready.

At 3:07 p.m., he got off the bus at 3rd Avenue near Victoria Street.

He walked west along Victoria Street.

At 3:13 p.m., a security camera captured him approaching Butch's office — just a few doors east of the building entrance. He looked at the watch on his left wrist. He was strolling.

Then he walked out of the camera's frame.

He was never seen again.

PART TEN: 3:15 P.M. TO 5:17 P.M. — THE OFFICE

No camera saw what happened inside the office. No witness heard anything. There are no statements. Justice Ker addressed this directly in her judgment: the sequence of events inside must be inferred from the circumstances.

But the circumstances are overwhelming.

What is known is this. Mohd arrived for his meeting sometime between 3:13 and 3:30 p.m. By 5:20 p.m., Butch had left the office and was reactivating his dashcam in the parking garage. The entirety of what follows happened in approximately two hours.

A forensic pathologist, Dr. Bilimoria, later examined Mohds body and documented his injuries in meticulous detail. Mohd had sustained eleven sharp force injuries — ten stab wounds and one slash:

One slash wound was above his left eyebrow.

Two stab wounds were to the left side of his neck — in close proximity to the carotid artery.

Seven stab wounds were clustered in the upper left chest — two of which punctured the left lung, causing it to collapse. One penetrated the pericardium and began filling the space around his heart with blood. Another wound penetrated the right ventricle of the heart. That was the fatal wound.

There was one final stab wound to the abdomen.

The wounds to the chest had a left-to-right, front-to-back, downward trajectory — consistent with a right-handed attacker striking a person in front of them. The weapon was a small Oneida brand kitchen knife — four and a half inches long with a four-inch handle.

Every wound except the last showed signs of congestion — meaning Mohd’s heart was still beating when they were inflicted. He was alive through almost the entire attack. The final abdominal wound was pale, consistent with occurring at or after the moment of death.

Dr. Bilimoria testified the wounds were inflicted in fairly rapid succession. Mohd was likely immediately overcome.

Butch had no defensive wounds when he was arrested a week later. Not a scratch.

After the stabbing, Butch’s work was far from done. Justice Ker compiled a list of everything he had to accomplish in that approximately two-hour window before he returned to the parkade to retrieve his vehicle. He had to:

• Remove Mohd's outer clothing — at a minimum his green jacket, his hat, and his heavy hiking boots
• Place the wooden garrote around Mohd’s neck
• Tie yellow nylon rope around Mohd's left wrist and right forearm, binding his arms behind his back
• Tie rope around Mohd's right ankle
• Manoeuvre his body into a folded, near-fetal position
• Wrap his body in a large quantity of plastic sheeting
• Wrap additional plastic around his head
• Tie yellow rope around his neck over the plastic
• Place Mohd inside the black plastic 45-gallon Tote
• Pack more plastic sheeting on top of the body
• Seal the Tote shut with two ratchet straps
• Clean the office — removing all visible blood evidence
• Place all debris — bloodstained plastic sheeting, paper towels, the knife, pushpins, and other materials — into large black garbage bags
• Retrieve Mohd's documents — the list of questions for the meeting — from his satchel or shopping bag, and conceal them

Justice Ker was blunt: it defies logic, common sense, and human experience that all of this could have been accomplished in two hours by someone who had not prepared for it.

The garrote, the plastic sheeting — pre-positioned in the office. The garbage bags and gloves — in the duffle bag he'd brought in at 1:13 p.m. The pushpins, found later in the bags in the van — possibly used to pin the plastic sheeting to surfaces during the cleanup.

There was evidence of blood in five areas of the office — the front door, the staircase, a wall near the top of the stairs, the floor at the top of the stairs, and the desk at the landing. The bloodstain pattern analyst, Staff Sergeant Thomas Watts, noted blood spatter in multiple directionalities, suggesting there had been more than one bloodletting event in the area near the top of the stairs. The evidence suggested the attack likely occurred right there — at the top of the stairs, near the entry to the office.

PART ELEVEN: 5:20 P.M. TO 5:55 P.M. — LEAVING THE SCENE

At 5:20 p.m., the Garmin dashcam in Butch's Honda SUV reactivated as he drove out of the Lansdowne Parkade. He drove his vehicle to Victoria Street and parked directly in front of the business a few doors west of his own law office. The time was 5:24 p.m.

At 5:27 p.m., he got out of his vehicle and walked back toward the office.

At 5:30 p.m., he returned carrying two large, weighted, partially filled black garbage bags, which he placed in the rear hatch of the SUV. His movements, the surveillance footage showed, were unhurried. There was no sign of agitation or panic. He walked back toward the office.

At 5:38 p.m., he emerged dragging the black plastic storage Tote — now extremely heavy — along the sidewalk toward his vehicle. Attached to the lid was a piece of white letter-sized paper. It said, in large bold text: "Do Not Remove or Open — For Sensitive Legal File Use Only — Butch Bagabuyo File." A cover story, in case anyone was watching.

He struggled to load the storage Tote into the back of his vehicle. For several minutes he could not manage it alone.

At 5:42 p.m., a man walking by on the sidewalk stopped to help. A homeless man. A stranger who had no idea what was inside the Tote. He helped Butch lift  it into the cargo area of the Honda Pilot. Butch gave the man some cash and thanked him.

The stranger walked away.

Butch went back into the office one more time.

At 5:47 p.m., he rearmed the office security system for the final time. He never returned to the office. At 5:49 p.m., he emerged from the building carrying a third partially filled garbage bag. He placed it in the vehicle.

At 5:54 p.m., the dashcam shows him driving east on Victoria Street.

At 5:55 p.m., he was home.

At 5:58 p.m., he disarmed his home security system.

Between 8:43 and 9:40 that evening, he and his girlfriend exchanged text messages and phone calls. In one text, he mentioned he was putting a medicated patch on his shoulder — an injury he had sustained in a 2021 car accident.

Mohd Abdullah's jacket, boots, hat, leather satchel, shopping bag, wallet, watch, and cellphone have never been found.

PART TWELVE: MARCH 12 TO 15 — THE COVER-UP

On March 12, Butch went to Costco and bought the 20-pound propane tank. Back home, the new tank was placed in his wooden storage shed alongside the Torch Kit he had bought on March 10 — both positioned in front of the piece of wood from which the garrote handles had already been cut.

On March 13, he made the Princess Auto run — the hacksaw, the hatchet, the neoprene gloves, the tarp, the paracord, the cargo carrier.

Meanwhile, at her home in Indonesia, Mohd’s fiancee was growing alarmed. Her text messages to Mohd on the afternoon of March 11 had gone unread. She waited a day, thinking positively. Then she reached out to Mohd's neighbour Hans Coopman on the Monday — March 14 — and asked him to check on Mohd. When the neighbour couldn't locate him, the police were called. A missing persons report was filed.

Tanya Thompson, who had spoken to Mohd at 1:30 p.m. on March 11, emailed him on March 12 asking how the meeting had gone. She asked: "Are you bathing in money? Or was it a bust?" She received no reply.

On the morning of March 15, Constable Kim Lucas of the Kamloops RCMP Missing Persons Unit telephoned Butch after identifying him as Mohd's lawyer. Butch returned her call at 8:55 a.m. He told her he had met with Mohd on "March 10 or 11." He said Mohd had told him he'd see him "when he was back," which Butch interpreted to mean Mohd was going out of town.

After hanging up with the constable, Butch moved into a higher gear.

At 2:42 p.m. that afternoon, surveillance footage showed his Honda SUV on Pacific Way — now equipped with the cargo carrier attached to the trailer hitch. On the carrier was the black storage Tote.  Inside the storage tote was Mohd Abdullah's body, which had been stored somewhere on his property for four days since the murder.

He drove to the home of his old friend and former client, Wynand Rautenbauch — an 83-year-old man who trusted him completely. He took Rautenbauch out for coffee. He told him he had some heavy stuff to get rid of and needed help renting a van. Rautenbauch didn't ask questions. He agreed to help his friend.

By 4:00 p.m., Rautenbauch had rented a Budget cargo van in his own name. He told the customer service representative they needed it to move a couch. The second man — Butch — said he did not want his name on the rental.

At 5:00 p.m., they picked up the van. By 5:39 p.m., surveillance footage showed Butch's SUV on Dominion Street, the cargo carrier now empty — the black storage Tote had been transferred.

Butch moved the storage Tote from his vehicle into the Budget van, along with numerous garbage bags, cloth shopping bags full of items, nitrile gloves, a shovel, and hacksaw blades. Rautenbauch drove the van back to his home and parked it in the driveway.

The next day — March 16 — Butch and Rautenbauch spent the entire day driving the van around the Interior of British Columbia looking for somewhere to bury the Tote. They drove more than 500 kilometres — to Cache Creek, Sun Peaks, Barriere, Logan Lake, Lac-Le-Jeune. The ground everywhere was still frozen, there was nowhere to bury Mohd. They returned to Kamloops. Rautenbauch still had no idea what was inside.

Butch did not bring his cellphones that day. He left them at home. There were unanswered emails about his mother's health and a message about picking up his daughter that went unread for hours.

That evening, at 7:09 p.m., his three backyard security cameras quietly resumed recording.

PART THIRTEEN: MARCH 17 — THE BODY IS FOUND

On March 17, Rautenbauch had a medical appointment. They couldn't meet. The van sat in the driveway.

That afternoon, Corporal David Marshall of the Kamloops RCMP — who would become the lead investigator in the case — sent Butch a text message asking him to contact the detachment. At 1:03 p.m., Marshall and another officer attended at Butch’s residence. Butch casually confirmed he had met with Mohd on the Friday before, in the afternoon, around 2:00 p.m. He said he couldn't say much more without consulting the Law Society first. He told them to come back next week.

Less than an hour later, at 1:46 p.m., Butch sent an email — to Mohd Abdullah's email address. He wrote that the police had been making inquiries, that he assumed Mohd was away until Monday, and that Mohd should contact police to let them know he was alright. He signed off: "I trust you are well."

He knew Mohd had been dead for six days.

By the evening of March 17, Rautenbauch's grandson, Justin Robertson, had become deeply worried. Something about the van, about his grandfather being used this way, didn't sit right. Eventually, his grandfather gave him permission to check.

Robertson went out to the van. He loosened one of the ratchet straps on the Tote. He lifted the lid.

He saw a human foot.

He called 911 immediately.

Sergeant Kevin McIntyre of the Kamloops RCMP responded to the scene. He opened the black plastic storage Tote. Inside, he found a body on its back, legs folded into the chest, ankles crossed. It was Mohd Abdullah. He was wrapped in layers of clear poly plastic sheeting with a black garbage bag over his head. A yellow rope was tied around his neck over the plastic. And around his neck, loosely, was a homemade wooden garrote — two wooden handles connected by braided metal wire.

The RCMP chose not to move the van. Instead, they left it under surveillance. They knew Butch had arranged to meet Rautenbauch the following morning.

PART FOURTEEN: MARCH 18 — THE ARREST

On March 18, at 8:26 a.m, Butch armed his home security system and left.

He drove to the Costco parking lot — the arranged meeting point with Rautenbauch. He waited several minutes. Rautenbauch didn't appear. Butch drove past the Rautenbauch residence. Then drove on to a nearby Tim Hortons.

Members of the RCMP surveillance team followed him the entire way. They arrested him in the Tim Hortons parking lot.

When he was searched incidental to his arrest, officers found a small white plastic bag concealed in the sleeve of his coat. Inside the bag were documents. Butch claimed solicitor-client privilege over them and the officers, following legal protocol, did not review them immediately. The documents were eventually vetted by independent referees and released to police.

They were the documents Mohd had brought to their meeting on March 11.

Mohd had brought them to the meeting as ammunition. Butch had taken them from his body, or from his satchel, and had been carrying them — hidden in his coat sleeve — for seven days. He had planned to dispose of them with the storage Tote.

When Butch was photographed at the police detachment after his arrest, he had no defensive wounds. Not a scratch.

He was also not wearing his watch. And he didn't have his cellphones. Three cellphones and a smart watch were found at his residence — sitting on his bed.

He had followed his to-do list. Don't bring phone and watch.

PART FIFTEEN: THE EVIDENCE — BUILDING THE CASE

What followed was one of the most thorough forensic investigations in recent Kamloops history.

The van was searched over two days — March 25 and 26 — in what investigators described as a painstaking archaeological dig, layer by layer. Inside the cargo area, buried under tarps and bags, they found: dozens of black garbage bags, some with holes cut to be worn as ponchos; bundles of poly plastic sheeting with red staining; COVID face masks; blue nitrile gloves; clothing including a maroon jacket with a partially melted sleeve; wet and stained paper towels; the Oneida kitchen utility knife with red staining; an Exacto knife; spare hacksaw blades; yellow rope; a face shield with staining; elbow-length rubber gloves; a pickaxe; a shovel; a large scraper; bleach; peroxide; rubbing alcohol; a roll of plastic food wrap; and 59 loose pushpins wrapped in plastic.

In one bag: a green bath towel with the name BAGABUYO written on the tag in black ink.

The search of Butch's residence was described by Justice Ker as herculean. The property looked, Corporal Desmond agreed, like a hoarder lived there. There was an RV, a large shipping container, a wooden storage shed, a utility shed — all crammed with items. Multiple rolls of plastic sheeting. Dozens of storage bins. Packages of yellow rope, work gloves, safety goggles. Bulk toilet paper, Kleenex, cleaning products. COVID masks and nitrile gloves by the box. A safe in the bedroom closet.

In the front living room, in a stack of papers: a cue card.

The cue card. Written in blue ink. Bullet-pointed. It said:

Bag Everything After 
 Dont Bring Phone & Watch 
 Turn GPS Off 
 Throw Garbage Out 
 Close doors so not visible 
 Location Services Off

The defence argued this to-do list was written after the murder and referred only to the disposal of the body. Justice Ker dismantled this argument: why would you write "bag everything after" after everything had already been bagged? Why would you write "close doors so not visible" with a reference to Victoria Street, after you had already left the office for the last time and never returned? The note could only have been written before the meeting. It covered the entire sequence: the murder, the cleanup, and the disposal.

The forensic chemistry evidence connected the plastic sheeting used to wrap Abdullah's body to a roll found in a Room of Butch's law office — and by physical alignment, that roll was connected to the plastic in the garbage bags in the van. The two pieces, when laid side by side in the courtroom, aligned along their cut edges — matching jags and curves that proved they had once been joined.

The wood biology evidence established that the garrote handles came from a piece of wood found in Butch's storage shed — placed there before the torch kit and propane tank were purchased and stacked in front of it.

And the security alarm records — an unbroken chain of entry and exit codes from the office, from the home, from the dashcam, from the backyard cameras — constructed a timeline of extraordinary precision. Corporal Marshall, the lead investigator, had collected every time-stamped, GPS-located piece of evidence he could find and woven them into a single continuous record. The defense had no answer for it.

PART SIXTEEN: THE TRIAL AND THE VERDICT

The trial of Rogelio "Butch" Bagabuyo opened on April 14, 2025 at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver. It was a judge-alone trial — no jury. Justice Kathleen Ker presided.

The proceedings ran for months. More than 190 exhibits were entered. Expert witnesses included a forensic accountant, a forensic pathologist, a bloodstain pattern analyst, a wood biologist, a forensic chemist, and a digital forensic examiner. Investigators, neighbours, friends of the deceased, the restoration painter, the Budget rental car representative — all testified.

On September 2, 2025, defence lawyer Mark Swartz announced that Butch would not be testifying in his own defence. He had been expected on the stand for most of that week. It was a last-minute decision described simply as a "late development." No explanation was given, although this may be interpreted that the Crown’s case was strong.

The defence's position throughout: yes, Butch stabbed Mohd. He admitted it. But it was manslaughter — an unplanned, spontaneous confrontation that went too far. A violent argument over money that Butch had not planned and had not intended to be fatal.

Crown prosecutor Ann Saettler spent two full days in closing arguments walking Justice Ker through the timeline. Evidence by evidence. Purchase by purchase. Timestamp by timestamp.

Closing arguments concluded in October 2025. Justice Ker announced she would deliver her verdict in Kamloops — the city where Mohd Abdullah had lived, worked, and died.

On February 3, 2026, Madam Justice Kathleen Ker delivered her verdict.

Guilty. First-degree murder.

She addressed Butch directly:

"Mr. Bagabuyo, for the foregoing reasons, I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the Crown has proved that you intentionally killed your former client, Mohd Abdullah, and that this was a planned and deliberate act. Accordingly, I find you guilty of first-degree murder."

She cited the constellation of circumstances — the to-do list, the two Totes, the plastic sheeting, the garrote, the disabled cameras, the pre-dawn visit to the office, the duffle bag. No single item, she acknowledged, was necessarily conclusive in isolation. But viewed together, through the lens of logic, common sense, and human experience, they excluded every other rational inference. As she wrote in her reasons: "Rarely are the numerous events in a circumstantial case confined to territory with clearly marked boundaries; rather they most often consist of a constellation of characteristics. As in astronomy, it is when you view the stars together that the constellation plainly appears."

Sheriffs handcuffed Butch in the courtroom and led him away.

He received an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

EPILOGUE

On March 10, 2022, at 6:24 p.m., Mohd Abdullah's friend Tanya Thompson sent him an email expressing support and good wishes for his meeting the next day.

She had understood from Mohd that his funds would finally be released. She knew how long he had waited. She knew how consumed he had been by this. She wanted him to know she was thinking of him.

What was waiting for him in that office was a black plastic storage Tote purchased ten days before, a garrote made from wood cut in a darkened backyard with the cameras disabled, a duffle bag full of plastic sheeting and cleanup supplies, and a kitchen knife.

He had spent six years trusting a man who had stolen everything from him and who was now preparing to erase him entirely.

His daughter Sarah told reporters her father was quiet but kind. That he always gave her wisdom. That when he visited her in the Philippines, they would have heart-to-heart talks.

He was 60 years old.

He had worked for 21 years at Thompson Rivers University and saw countless students graduate.

He had a folder on his computer labelled "Butch," full of every document, every cheque, every email — because he kept records of everything, because he was meticulous, because he thought documentation was how you protected yourself.

The documents were found in the sleeve of his murderer's coat.

The money — $785,000 — has never been recovered.

CLOSER

This episode was written, researched and produced by me, Ryan Dell.  If this is your first time listening, and you like what you heard, please take a moment to give me a 5-star review.  It helps the podcast grow and helps other people find these amazing stories.  

I love hearing from you, if you have a story I should cover, please send me an email.  My email is: canadiancrimecast@gmail.com

I’m Ryan Dell, and this is Canadian CrimeCast: Coast to Coast True Crime.